Dr Sedley, consultant neurologist and researcher at Newcastle University, said: “On average, people listening to the active ones, but not the placebo ones, during that phase did get a significant quieting of their tinnitus.
“We did it with synthetic musical notes, but we just modify them subtly, so that the neurons that respond to sound pitches or frequencies near to the tinnitus, we’re just activating them at slightly different times to each other, rather than all together.”
The researchers stressed it was “early days” but had ambitions to replicate the process with more everyday sounds.
“If we could build this into the normal, listening to music and talk radio, podcasts, [which] people are doing anyway, they could rack up hours and hours of listening every day,” Dr Sedley said.
“So the hope is, even if we can’t cure tinnitus, that we might find something that makes it quieter for a fair number of people living with it just by doing the things they would already be doing in their lives.”
